


Compartmentalized

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Friendly, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fate, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Older Man/Younger Woman, Phil Coulson damselling, Role Reversal, Soulmates, spacetime as Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: written for #byebyehiatus for the prompt about Daisy trying to compartmentalize Coulson in a reversal of their S1 roles.





	

He wonders exactly how their roles ended up so reversed.

At this point, he could probably say in all seriousness that the Universe is playing a big, cruel joke on him, on them both, but what's the point?

She's back, and they're working together, even under these very unideal conditions.

The part where she gets invited to meetings and he doesn't still stings, though.

It's like the new Director always wants him to know his place in this new schema. That his influence when it comes to her is limited.

And the thing with Daisy is that she _is_ back. She is here in body and mind, and is slowly recovering to her former fighting shape.

But there is something closed off to him.

He finds himself lowering his eyes when he sees her in the halls, making sure he doesn't stare too long to give it all away.

The Director treated him like a bit of a problem child, anyway, and probably was chomping at the bit about it, handing out edicts about how he was forbidden to be too involved with Daisy.

If he wanted to look for Quake in his downtime, who was the Director to say?

It's when Daisy told him to stop looking, that he stopped.

And then, she turned herself in.

  
##

 

She notices the way he looks at her. She does.

Like he's made some mistake or he's blaming himself for this situation entirely, and she hates it.

What she can't tell him, is that he is part of the reason she left.

It would crush him and just confirm his fears, and she thinks that they've done this before and they'll get past it.  No need to make it hurt worse.

It's neither of their fault she's at a higher Level than him in this new SHIELD. The Director has never explained it.

But it seems like he has some interest in keeping them apart, limiting their influence on each other.

She guesses that someone could read their older mission files, and even without all the details, connect some of the dots.

That eventually it would start to form a certain kind of picture.  

And she feels guilty, because now that he's not Director, there's no way of hiding that she's been a liability in a lot of ways, but especially to him, personally.

Digging around in the SHIELD files these days is forbidden, though. And they dug up the electronic bracelet just to prove their point.

Highly likely she could disable it with her powers, but a hundred percent guaranteed to trigger some alarms.

There isn't a lot of love lost between her and this new Director. She can tell by the way Coulson or Mack or May have spoken about him that they feel the same.

And she doesn't want to fuel the Director's limited imagination, about what Coulson is to her.

That he could somehow be a kind of leverage.

  
##

 

"I'm going back out there," she tells him, furious, storming into his office.

"Not after I told you to stand down, you're not."

"You don't think that I'll walk out that door," she says, narrowing her eyes. "Just because you want to pull SHIELD rank on me? When Coulson was Director-"

"He's not anymore," he interrupts. "And I don't have to share my reasons with you just because he did. We'll get him back my way."

"This isn't about _your_ SHIELD," she huffs. "This is a personal vendetta, between him and Blake."

"No, this is about you. They're using him as bait, to get to you," he tells her, like he's explaining everything.

Daisy wants to say something more, and turns to look at May and Simmons as a check for her anger. May just stares back cooly, and gives her head an almost imperceptable shake.

"Fine, but I want to run the tactical, on the back end. I'm familiar with all of their communications, I know their routes."

"As long as our priority is the mission," he warns her, sitting on the edge of the desk. "This isn't just about Agent Coulson, you know."

"I'm aware," she says, barely able to hide her hostility. "What do you think I was doing out there all alone for six months?"

"You're very close to this, Agent Johnson. You had better be careful."

As she walks out just as angry as she was when she came in, she feels a hand on her shoulder as she heads down the stairs and spins around.

It's May. "We'll get him back, Daisy."

  
##

 

"This isn't working," he tells her, sitting on the edge of his bunk, not exactly meeting her eyes.

"What isn't?" she asks, exasperated-sounding and crossing her arms as she leans in the doorway.

"I'm a liability."

She knows what he's thinking. She's had the same thoughts so many times when it comes to him.

"So, what are you going to do? Leave SHIELD?" she asks, disbelieving.

He glances up at her then, and her eyebrows go up as she comes and sits beside him, forcing him to move aside for her.

"Is that what you want?"

She knows he still feels guilty about the stuff with Blake and the Watchdogs, but it all worked out in the end. And today wasn't a great day in the field for either of them, he's reaching inward.

His face turns to look at her, and she can tell something is coiled beneath the surface. Something they've avoided from the moment she came back.

"Yes," he says it harshly, like he's forcing himself to.

Her eyes rove over his face, seeing the twitch in the corner of his jaw, before she focuses her gaze on him again.

"You're lying. You know I can tell, right?"

"Yes," he answers a moment later, after swallowing.  

No point in hiding the fact that she is weak, when it comes to him. It's taken her some time to work through it, all of the stuff with Hive, her past.

But maybe she can let herself be weak like this.  That it actually makes her less afraid?

It's kind of a paradox. At this point she's learned to accept them.

She sighs and lifts her hand to touch the butterfly stitches above his eyebrow, and he almost seems to melt into her touch.

"How come you always get hurt here?"

"Hard headed," he replies, and then gives a short, cynical laugh at his own terrible joke.

  
##

 

  
He's not sure why it was so hard before this moment.

It all seems so clear, looking back at it.

Remembering Sif's words, about tides you can't swim against. Fitz talking about spacetime and how events were already finished, they could only see moments from their vantage point.

He's always known her. He always was meant to.

Maybe it's even why he came back from where he was when he died. Or she was already there, and that's how they met?

It seems like the sort of thing she'd find interesting to consider. He should probably get around to telling her. But not tonight.

The point is, it was always her.

"You're awfully stubborn," she says to him, as he loosens the straps at the top of her boot.

"I thought you admired that about me," he answers in a teasing tone, then leans over and turns on the tap water, holding his hand beneath it to check the temperature.

"To a point," she replies with a yawn, and he looks up, to make sure he's not screwing this up, but then sees the attempt at a playful smile on her tired face.

"What, no bubbles?" she asks, with a mock frown, when he stares too long, and tips her chin at the bathtub.

"I got your bubbles," he says, reaching into the corner store bag on the floor, and pulling the bottle of cheap pink bubbles out.

He opens it while she watches, moving her arm around in the sling, to use her other finger to scratch at an itch on her shoulder.

"You always take care of me," she says, touching her fingers to his temple, as he twists the cap off.

"I try," he answers, holding his breath for a moment. How she could be so grateful for this, when she's the one who almost died?

They share a moment, wordless, and then he leans over the tub and pours a capful in and watches the bubbles expand.

He starts to help her out of her boot.

 


End file.
